Blogging again

We have been very busy since my last blog in 2011. Now we have 193 local campaigns and nearly 9m people live in local authorities with a policy of giving most of their residential streets 20mph limits. We also have nearly 1,000 followers in twitter. Because of all our activity then our blogging has been a little neglected. However, here is the text of a guest blog which I was asked to contribute to the European Cyclists federation about the European Citizen's Initiative which we are involved with :-

I started campaigning for 20mph/30kmh speed limits after a cycle trip to Hilden in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2004. There 23% of their in-town trips were by bicycle after implementing a 30kmh speed limit on almost all of their roads in 1991. It was cutting the relative speed between motor cars and cyclists that was seen as the single most important thing that could be done to make cycling safer and more comfortable. And for a cyclist at 22kmh the relative speed difference with a 40kmh car is 18kmh which drops to just 8kmh if the car is doing 30kmh. That means more than twice the distance and time for avoiding each other.

But there is much more than this which makes 30kmh as a default for urban and residential streets so important for cycling. It’s the fact that such a policy benefits pedestrians and drivers as much as cyclists. It’s a policy which provides universal benefits to the majority of the population rather than just the minority who cycle. It’s a policy that can dramatically improve the liveability of our streets with particular benefits for the young and old who may lack the mental acuity to assess the speed of vehicles or the physical agility to move quickly.

It is also a policy which questions our values about streets and how they are public spaces to be shared for the good of the whole community rather than simply roads for car drivers. It questions the benefits of driving at 40kmh+ in residential and urban roads and puts them against the wide public benefits that come from lower speeds with safer walking and cycling, quieter streets, less polluted streets and a far greater civic amenity.

Of course lower vehicle speeds inevitably requires a change in behaviour and this can best be done when it provides benefits to the people whose behaviour we need to change. The driver is the father of the child who wants to walk or cycle to school, or is the daughter of the elderly person who wants to keep on walking to the shops regularly. It’s about the driver as a citizen creating better communities by understanding the benefits that driving slower brings to those communities.

Most importantly, by focussing on a single and widely beneficial initiative it brings together cyclists, pedestrians, children, elderly, disabled and civic amenity groups all in mutual support for behaviour change. It becomes the catalyst for a fundamental review of how we share our public spaces for transport.

Of course this does not displace the need for properly designed cycle facilities, but does provide a foundation for safer and more equitable transport policies in our communities.

But the universal benefit of 30kmh speed limits and the desire for change goes far beyond a single country and can be harnessed across a complete continent. And that is the purpose of the European Citizen’s Initiative which is looking to gather and show support across the EU. Cyclists can make a huge difference for not only themselves but the whole of society by supporting this important initiative.

 

You can sign up to the initiative at www.20mph4.eu

 

Reflections on a presentation made in 2005

Whilst tidying up my office I came across the transcript of the presentation I made in 2005.  Much of this is still relevant today. But rather than in my presentation only being able to say that Kingston-upon-Hull was a 20mph town, we can now inlcude Portsmouth, Oxford, Liverpool, Warrington, Lancashire, Sheffield, York, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Edinburgh, Bath & North East Somerset and Middlesbrough as being places that either have or are implementing 20mph limits for all residential roads.


Moving Cycling into the Mainstream

Rod King’s address to the Streets Ahead CTC/CCN Conference in Warrington, November 2005

I would like you to meet Jane, Fred, Peter, Mary and Nigel. None of them cycle. Jane has just started at University and is home for the weekend, Fred works in a call centre, Peter runs his own advertising agency, Mary is very active with her grandchildren, especially Nigel whom she takes to the nursery each day.

They all started today variously Christmas shopping, visiting friends, taking the children swimming - without even a thought of doing these activities by bicycle. Is it our job to encourage them to cycle? How can we make it safe and enjoyable for them? If they were to cycle would it reduce congestion on our roads? Would they have a healthier lifestyle and be more independent?

None of them will become cyclists or contribute to modal shift. In statistical terms they are the five people who died on UK roads today. They all met very violent deaths - and none of them were cyclists. Some were drivers, some passengers, others pedestrians

Jane, Fred, Peter, Mary and Nigel are not the only victims. By the end of today Jill, Frank, Amanda, David and Collette will also have been killed on our roads. A hundred more will be seriously injured and disabled.

Tomorrow there will be a similar number of fatalities - and one will be a cyclist. Between now and the end of the month 180 will die and 1,800 be seriously injured on our roads. This total for 18 days exceeds the number of rail deaths in the last ten years. Only 4 per cent will be cyclists but together with pedestrians they make up over a quarter of road deaths.

As campaigners we believe that cycling is not dangerous and proclaim its many benefits to the community - less congestion, healthier lifestyle, better mobility for children, reduced air pollution. We arm ourselves with a copy of Cyclecraft, display our cycle maps highlighting the quieter routes. We take advantage of cycle lanes and specially treated junctions. We devise Safe Routes to Schools and Travel Plans, we encourage employers to install showers, we work with councils to produce cycle friendly Local Transport Plans (LTPs), we organise cycle rides for novices, we implement training schemes. Yet despite all our good work cycling declined from 4.5 billion kilometres in 2003 to 3.9 in 2004. And car use rose inexorably.

Why has there been no modal shift to cycling? The answer is that the British public is too frightened to cycle on our roads. We can argue that such fear is perceived rather than real but we must not make the mistake of denying its impact. We compound this error by our contradictory actions. It is illogical to deny the dangers of cycling while at the same time campaigning to reduce them.

Over the last 10 years much has been achieved campaigning for better highway engineering and establishing cycling within LTPs. However, to make a real and lasting difference we must address the fears of non-cyclists rather than the needs of current cyclists.

Much that we do in life involves risk and danger but is balanced by expected gain. As parents we celebrate the day when our child takes their first steps, we cheer when they ride a bike. For our children the pain of occasionally falling off is offset by the gain of independent travel.

We adults then curtail our children's rights and freedoms to ride, walk, play, run and jump in their streets. Enthusiasm wanes and anxiety increases as we (over) stress the risks. “Watch you don't get killed,” “Wear a helmet, “Wear bright clothing”, “Pull over, stop, dismount”, and “Walk across when turning right.” These dire warnings inculcate a terror of roads in our children, deflecting responsibility from the source of the danger - the motorist - onto pedestrians and cyclists.

Safe Routes to Schools seek to encourage walking and cycling by identifying preferred routes. This initiative ignores the right of pedestrians and cyclists to expect respect from drivers - wherever they are. Instead we marshal children along routes providing the minimal inconvenience to motorists. All routes are safe routes to school - it is only motorists that take away the safety. We should be asking not “What can children do to avoid motorists?” but “What can motorists do to avoid children?”

Millions of pounds are spent on cycle lanes and tracks. Yet this very visible public expenditure has not resulted in more cycling. Segregation is only useful if continuous and without intersection conflict which quickly discourages new cyclists. High urban speeds in the UK make it particularly expensive to engineer the same degree of safety for pedestrians and cyclists compared to countries with lower speeds. It costs 25 times more to make a junction safe for cyclists where a 30 mph limit operates compared to 20 mph. Why bother with £50,000 of highway engineering when £50 spent on a few 20 mph repeater signs achieves the same result, that is - more and safer cycling?

Focussing on the engineering of roads, rather than the behaviour of motorists, aids and abets the marginalisation of cycling. It supports the idea that the problem is the cyclist on our roads rather than the inequitable sharing of road space. At junctions and roundabouts cyclists and pedestrians are diverted via a circuitous route so as not to delay the motor traffic. Too often the fast, hard car gets priority over the slow and vulnerable highway user.

Motor manufacturers emphasise the safety aspects of their products. This marketing is directed at the car’s occupants rather than any other highway users the car may encounter -reinforcing the view that it is dangerous to be without a protective steel shell. Every advert that extols the safety of a motor vehicle sub-consciously highlights the dangers for cyclists and pedestrians.

This neurosis is nurtured by thousands of road safety campaigners, teachers, and millions of pounds of vehicle manufacturer advertising. Cycle campaigners are also guilty. Instead of striving in vain to reduce the risks of cycling we should boldly declare, “Walking and Cycling are safe – Driving is dangerous.”

Speed cameras save lives yet people still complain when they are caught breaking the law.
Lack of speed enforcement continues to favour the seat belt-protected motorist against the comatosed cyclist or pedestrian.

Fear of traffic has created a society where young people are denied independent mobility, the opportunity to expand their geographical boundaries in preparation for adulthood. Levels of independent youth travel in the UK are 20 per cent those in Europe. Our youth are frightened of riding on our roads, so have little empathy for cyclists when, as adults they acquire their own motorised transport.


Warrington is twinned with Hilden, a German city midway between Düsseldorf and Köln
where car ownership is higher than the national average. Over the last 15 years the council has implemented a systematic programme of traffic calming with the co-operation of residents. Now 75 per cent of the urban area has a speed limit of 30 kph (20 mph) and in Home Zones it is as low as 5 mph. In 1989 cycling accounted for 9 per cent of all journeys and 14 per cent of town centre traffic, in 2004 the figures rose to 14 and 23 per cent respectively. Lutz Groll, a Hilden planner concludes, “Traffic calming is a fundamental element in successful bicycle promotion.”

There are similar success stories throughout northern Europe. In Britain only Kingston upon Hull has pioneered a comprehensive 20 mph speed limit. This bold experiment has reduced crashes causing deaths or serious injuries by 90 per cent and child pedestrian casualties by 74 per cent.

We must follow the example of Hilden and Hull and avoid the car-dependent culture of America. We should strive to emulate our European neighbours where citizens use the streets to play, gossip, shop, walk, run, cycle, gather and linger without fear of being killed.

Maximum vehicle speeds must be reduced in all our urban and residential areas to 20 mph. The viability, convenience, safety, directness and simple right to walk or cycle on our roads cannot be compromised in order to maintain high traffic speeds in our towns, cities and villages. We must champion the rights of all to choose their mode of transport without fear. We must stop giving disproportionate mobility rights to car owners and motorists when one quarter of all households has no access to a car.

A default speed limit of 20 mph will have only a marginal impact on journey time, on average adding one minute to a 15 minute journey - but will significantly increase safety and reduce fear for pedestrians and cyclists. It will benefit all: streets will become more peaceful, traffic will flow more smoothly, air pollution will decrease as will road maintenance costs. There will be fewer deaths and injuries for pedestrian, cyclists - and motorists. Children will reclaim the right to walk and cycle independently to school, parents will be freed from the slavery of the school run - and all at minimal cost to cash-strapped councils.

There will be several desirable side effects to a rise in cycling: more exercise, slimmer children, social inclusion, community cohesion, better air quality, less congestion. Elsewhere cycling is not perceived in such complex terms. In Europe bicycles are not expected to deliver key government policies but just get you from A to B.

In Britain those that cycle tend to be fit, brave and very assertive. Such clearly independent creatures seldom evoke sympathy. To achieve slower speeds it is vital to collaborate with a larger force, walkers. After all, we are all pedestrians – even a motorist when he steps out of his car. As pedestrians we represent the majority rather than the minority. It is better to campaign for every child in a school, everyone who walks rather than the 5 per cent who cycle. We can better promote safe cycling not as cyclists but as pedestrians who also cycle.

We must stimulate a wide public debate on the moral issues of excessive speed and the rights of individuals to enjoy their streets as pedestrians or cyclists without fear. Our stance must be pro-safer motoring not anti-motorist.

Lower blanket speeds must become the priority for pedestrian, cycle, road safety and civic campaigners. Implementation will be more beneficial than all the cycle schemes, facilities and routes installed to date. We must think very carefully whether to assist the development of segregated facilities.

We must use the media to pursue our cause through letters, articles and press releases. Remember we are not campaigning for cyclists but mainly for pedestrians who outnumber cyclist deaths by four to one. The Warrington Guardian now refers to me as Rod King, Speed Campaigner rather than Rod King, Cycle Campaigner.

We must work locally and nationally to campaign for speed reduction. We should join political parties and influence from the inside. Active support for the Twenty's Plenty campaign will move cycling into the mainstream. TWENTY'S PLENTY must become our rallying cry.

Our responsibility is to lead and influence our society towards a better future in which
everyone has the right to ride, the right to walk, the right to life. Let us not forget Jane, Fred, Peter, Mary, Nigel, Jill, Frank, Amanda, David and Collette.

Some thoughts on 9/11

Few people will have got through yesterday without being reminded of the event 10 years ago that has changed so much of our history in the first decade of the 21st century. The killing of nearly 3,000 people in a few hours in the terrorist attack on the United States both directly affected so many families of not just US workers but also foreign nationals who were victims, but also was a call to action to governments around the world to change their domestic and foreign security policies. It was an affront to democracy and the civil liberties which so many of us hold dearly.

We are all shocked by the carnage and more so because we see the images on our screens and feel for the people involved. We respect and honour their memory.

There has been much analysis and discussion since then. Western powers have been involved in wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. We have seen further terrorist attacks in London, Bali and Madrid as well as a huge loss of life in the Middle East.

The world is indeed a changed place since 9/11. With hindsight we can see so many connected issues :- Palestine, Suni/Shia sectarianism, US presence in Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda, the “fog of war”, “collateral damage”, “hate crimes”, the instability created in the financial markets, “the Arab Spring”, etc.
And through all of these we see a commodity lurking in the background – Oil. Of course no one directly connects all of these events to the Western demand for oil as energy, but it certainly seems to be implicated in most of these issues.

Personally, I do not have the knowledge or the expertise to make finer judgments on theses connection. But my role as a Road Danger Reduction advocate means that I am aware of some outcomes that really do require consideration. I wonder if you know how many people have died on US roads in the last 10 years since the nearly 3,000 deaths of 9/11. Would it be 10,000? That would be terrible. What if it were 50,000?... or even 100,000!!!

Well the actual figure was over 390,000 people (1). All of these violent deaths came to members of US communities and all of their families were devastated by the loss of their loved ones.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not trying to belittle the events of 9/11 or say that the event was one which we should ignore or put on some lesser level than road deaths. Nor is it any criticism of the US, its people or government. But it does show in stark reality that as communities we are sensitised to certain events and desensitised to others. The fact that those 390,000 deaths were distributed across all states and over 10 years means that the steady “drip of deaths” is not big news or a single event.

And we see similar discrepancies in the UK. We all respect the people of Wooton Bassett when they have paid their respects to the dead servicemen as they return to their homeland. And 558 have died in fighting for our values and security. Brave men and women who do what we choose not to, but do so on our behalf. In that same 10 year period 27,000 have died on our UK roads. Maybe if we could route all of those 27,000 funerals through one small town then we would see the carnage on our roads differently.

But, as I have said, this is not a claim to belittle the suffering from 9/11 either here or across the world. But if we consider the way in which governments have responded to the events of 9/11. The huge efforts and cost that went into the ensuing strategies, policies and actions, then one wonders why we cannot do the same for the way in which we share our roads. If “motorism” is the “addiction to or practice of motoring” then what is the “cost of motorism” for our communities. In the UK the Dept for Transport estimate each death as costing our community £1.4m or $2.2m. That’s a total cost in the US of $858,000,000,000 over the last 10 years. And of course you can probably multiply that by 5 or 10 times to take account of the far larger number of non fatal injuries and damage only collisions.

In our Northern European neighbours they have both lower casualty rates and far more vulnerable road users as cyclists and pedestrians on their roads. In Sweden they have their “Vision Zero” strategy which recognises that every road death is avoidable and are constantly re-assessing what they need to do in order to deliver that vision. They know that whilst lowers speeds are not the sole answer they are a necessity if their strategies are to be convincing and successful. In Britain our default residential and urban roads have a speed limit of 30mph which is 60% higher than their 18.5mph (30 kph). They also have “stricter liability” laws which help address the imbalance of protection between vulnerable road users and motor vehicles. They also put real funds into protecting vulnerable road users through adequate and well designed pedestrian and cycle facilities.

Its time that our governments in both the UK and around the world recognise that whilst we do and should take care to protect ourselves against malicious attacks from enemies and terrorists, we should be equally aware that the lives lost through our “addiction to motoring” are just as tragic, and somehow the fact that no-one intends for them to happen makes them even more so. We need leadership and action. We need to “normalise” our relationship with the motor vehicle. We need to recognise that “speed becomes greed” when it takes away the choice for others to walk or cycle without fear. It does not mean banning motor vehicles and certainly is not anti-motorist. But it does recognise that we need to re-assess the whole way in which we use our public spaces for transport.

Some have made comments about governments who show the slightest regard to enforced behaviour change as being evidence of a “war on motorists”. Others have pointed out that fining law breakers, taxing fuel and paying for parking hardly registers on the scale of “wars or persecutions” as they really exist around the world.

So whilst there never was a “war on the motorist”, maybe its time that we did start a “war on motorism”. Our governments should use this anniversary, not only to recognise the loss of life and freedom that have come from the events of 9/11 but also to recognise that there is an issue within our communities that causes death and destruction on an appalling scale and requires addressing with the same vigour, commitment and resolution that we have shown in response to those events.

(1) National Highway Traffic safety Administration

Our video report on The 20mph City conference

Profesor Danny Dorling on the case for 20mph Speed Limits

See Professor Dorlong of Sheffiled University in this excellent video.

Adopt a 20mph speed limit in residential areas - Danny Dorling from Matt CM on Vimeo.

Best regards

Rod

An important 2 weeks for 20's Plenty for Us

Its been an important couple of weeks for 20’s Plenty for Us. First we  had the May 5^th elections where a number of local councils had shifts in council make-up which provides new opportunities to gain support for implementing Total 20 policies.

Congratulations to Anna Semlyen, our Campaign Manager, who won a seat on City of York council and where Total 20 is now a policy of the majority party.

Last week (May 17^th) saw us working with PTRC-Training and Warrington Borough Council to hold the “20mph City” conference. This was  the first conference focussed solely on 20mph speed limits and attracted delegates from a wide range of local authorities, charity organisations, health and a strong presence from 20’s Plenty for Us campaigners. The conference was really significant in that other conferences that had included, but not focussed on, 20mph limits had been looking at Portsmouth which was the only 20mph city at the time. With Oxford, Islington, Bristol, Warrington, Lancashire, Hartlepool and Edinburgh all now implementing and in various stages of rolling out Total 20 , this was the first “post Portsmouth” discussion of 20mph limits.

The conference first heard from Mark Tune on the 197 road pilot that Warrington Borough Council concluded last year. Mark related how he had been “genuinely surprised” at the reduction in speeds and casualties. This had changed the council’s perception of the opportunity presented for a town-wide roll-out. As a result the “experimental” 20mph limits were replaced by permanent ones on all but two of the piloted roads. The Borough Council’s Executive Board decided it wanted these same advantages for Warrington citizens and this is now to be rolled out to all areas.

I then presented on the way that the 20’s Plenty for Us campaign is succeeding and included an update on implementations around the country. I also pointed out the great “value for money” of Total 20 with it being 6.5 times more cost-effective than speed bumps and other physical 20mph zones. I highlighted the way current “isolated” 20mph zones actually maintain high speeds on the rest of the urban and residential road network.

Duncan Price of DfT related the government’s current position on its Road Safety Framework for 2011-2020. There was not much on 20mph in this and he said that a new “speed limit review” is expected in 9-12 months. Hence the current Dec 2009 guidance still applies encouraging 20mph for all residential roads.

Alan Tapp of University of West of England then looked at how Total 20 could be socially marketed. Pointing out the importance of simple clear messages and empathy with people who may want to change their behaviour. Key stages in social marketing are  :-

1.       Build values and beliefs

2.       Appeal to self-interest

3.       Counter myths and objections

He also emphasised the need to enable people to understand that their views are shared by others. With social attitudes consistently showing that people support 20mph limits for residential roads, we need to remind people that their lower speed aspirations are widely held.

We will be developing some new campaign material adopting these ideas shortly.

Lunch was a great opportunity meet with many campaigners and other delegates. After lunch, delegates heard Anna reciting our 20’s Plenty for Us rap poem before more presentations.  Alistair Smith (Assistant Director Transport and Engineering) and Councillor Stephen Thomas from Hartlepool Borough Council talked us through the process they had followed with a scrutiny committee to debate and gather evidence on Total 20. Alistair also remembered and related how I had placed chocolate on each of Councillors’ places at the meeting I had presented at. Ending my presentation I asked them  to look at the wrappers where they found that the chocolates were “Quality Streets”. Hartlepool are rolling-out 20mph for most of their residential roads shortly.

John Whitelegg of Liverpool John Moores University is a former Councillor in Lancashire. Having also worked in Europe on road danger reduction he gave us a very informed view of how to win political support.

He talked about the need to express with stark clarity the costs of not changing the road environment for the better for vulnerable road users. The cost is death and injury to local people. There is probably no other area of local politics where Councillors can wield such power for good or where inaction will cost so much.  In our communities we have the choice between delivering safe streets or nasty dangerous streets which kill and injure.  Sweden has a “Vison Zero” policy of aiming for no road deaths.

Dominic Harrison is the joint Director of Public Health for Blackburn with Darwen and Blackburn. He looked at 20mph limits from a health perspective, particularly with regard to the benefits and also “Large Scale Change Methods”. I felt that a particular slide was relevant which said :-

Evidence suggests that LSC (Large Scale Change) is an emergent process that involves: 

•       Articulating a vision of something much better than status quo

•       Focusing on some key themes

•       Tapping into and mobilising the imagination, will, and energy of a large number of diverse stakeholders

•       Creating concrete, mutually reinforcing change in multiple processes and systems

•       Continually refreshing the story and attracting new, active supporters

•       Monitoring progress and adapting as you go

•       Bringing about such deep changes in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours that sustainability becomes largely inherent

–      Paul Plsek, Director, Academy for Large-Scale Change

This resonates with the 20’s Plenty for Us campaign. The widening body of professional support for lower speeds on residential roads is very much creating the moral and financial imperative for change in how we share our streets.

Professor Danny Dorling of Sheffield University approaches 20 mph limits from a completely practical perspective as a geographer. His work on morbidity was one of the first to highlight the role which the roads play in early death.  Being a pedestrian hit by a motor vehicle is the biggest cause of death for children from 3 to 16. Something which if it had been a disease would be seen as the greatest challenge for the medical profession. He compared our attitudes to road casualties as being similar to the way that streets were used as open sewers till the mid 19^th century. Deaths caused were seen as inevitable and it was not until this was recognised that the sewers, that today we take for granted, were built. And the 20^th century had smoking which was thought to be cool, warming and even able to help soothe respiratory conditions. Yet now we all know it to be the cause of so much harm.

And he looked to the future and pondered as to how future academics will look back on the 21^st century and not the dates that we finally realised that we need to change our priorities to put people above cars. His historical perspective reminds us that the large scale change is possible and that we should never give up just because the initial establishment responses are negative.

Najeed Neky from Living Streets (formerly the Pedestrians Association) talked on how 20mph limits are foundations for a more pedestrian oriented street environment. That once vehicle speeds are limited to 20mph then so much more becomes possible. Whilst he showed places where engineering had been used to create a different streetscape, it is the wide area benefits of 20mph limits which really offer a great opportunity to transform our streets.

Feedback from delegates was excellent and we felt that the conference marked an important step in our campaign.  Conference slides / presentations will go on the www.20splentyforus.org.uk site.

Just 5 days later I was off to Brussels at the invitation of Keith Taylor (MEP for South East). Here I met several MEPs on the Transport and Tourism Committee who are going through the process of adopting a report on European Road Safety 2011-2020. A key amendment being added is :-

24a. Encourages the Commission to propose speed limits of 30 kmh in urban areas, with the possibility for local authorities to introduce other limits for particular cases, and of 120 kmh on highways, with more efficient enforcement;

I understand that through the discussions and compromises that inevitably take place when agreement across so many countries is required this has been softened slightly to “strongly recommend” 30 kmh on residential roads. However this will be an important recognition of the benefits of 30kph limits and its acceptance as European wide “best practice”.

I was therefore very pleased to meet a number of MEPs on the committee and tell them how strongly 20’s Plenty for Us was progressing. I was also able to meet representatives from the European Commission which is the administrative rather than political part of the EU. Whilst they explained that on transport the actual legislation was devolved to member countries it was useful to both highlight our campaign and the benefits from harmonising on 30kph for residential and urban roads. They also pointed to their work on comparing the record of different countries on road safety.

This was interesting because I also met up with representatives from ETSC (European Transport Safety Council) who recently showed whilst UK is the “Safest” EU country in terms of total fatalities per million inhabitants in 2009, for pedestrians and cyclists it is falling way behind other countries and the EU average. One of the key recommendations of ETSC is 30kph limits for residential roads and those shared with pedestrians and cyclists. The latest report can be found at :-

http://www.etsc.eu/documents/ETSC_Flash19_unprotected_road_users.pdf

They are also pushing the Transport and Tourism committee to recommend “strong” interventions for vulnerable road users.

I met the European Cyclists Federation who are co-ordinating efforts from EU-wide cycling organisations, including CTC, Cyclenation and Sustrans.

I also had the opportunity to sit in on one of the committee meetings, complete with translators etc. It really brought home the breadth of EU member involvement and the wide range of opinions.

The meetings were therefore an excellent opportunity to talk about the achievements that have been made in the UK in progressive local authorities implementing 20mph on an authority-wide basis. The Transport and Tourism Committee will be finalising its report over the next few weeks, and we will be continuing our lobbying of committee MEPs. Our briefing sheet is available on our web site at www.20splentyforus.org.uk/briefingsheets/30kph_good_for_UK-Good_for_EU.pdf

In conclusion, we are making great progress. Our reach is extending and more and more local authorities are looking at Total 20 as the foundation for their strategies to make community streets better places to be. We are now receiving support from a wide range of professionals including transport, health, education, social mobility and access and environment.

Of course getting Total 20 implemented is still no easy task. Large scale social change never is. And as Professor Danny Dorling reminds us, none of the major changes such as open sewers, smoking, clean beaches, etc ., were ever easy. The status quo, lethargy, complacency and vested interests all make it difficult and our progress will vary from community to community, but I truly believe that the breadth of support for our campaign, together with consistent results of lower speeds and reduced casualties wherever Total 20 is deployed, are turning heads and making wide scale adoption a realistic objective.

Comment made to Warrington Traffic Committee - 14th March 2011

On 14th march the Traffic Committee at Warrington Borough Council met to approve the Traffic Refgulation Order for nearly 200 roads being set at 20mph. This is what I said at the meeting :-

Councillors, ladies and gentlemen

It was 7 years ago that I decided to cycle to Warrington’s twin town Hilden to find out what they had done to get 23% of their in-town trips made by bicycle. With another 20% of trips being made on buses they had far few cars on the road per person travelling than in Warrington.

And so on 29^th June 2004, the late Councillor Lafferty, as mayor, waived me off from in front of the town hall.

Little did I know that the journey I was commencing would last many years and take in cities all around the country and even as far as Brussels and New York when I subsequently set up 20’s Plenty for Us as a national campaign to support lower speed limits for residential streets. We now have over 70 local campaign groups and a growing national and international reputation.

The secret of Hilden’s success in cycling, walking and avoiding congestion was the simple recognition in the early 1990’s that in order to maximise the choice of citizens to cycle and walk then it was necessary to get the speeds of walkers and cyclists closer to that of motor vehicles. They reasoned that the only solution was to introduce a 30 kph or 18 mph speed limit as the default across the whole town. This was the foundation of them increasing active travel and creating a safer and better street environment for all.

Of course they were not alone in Northern Europe and in many countries from Norway to Belgium and France then 30 kph speed limits for residential and urban roads have become the norm.

Perhaps I can point out some of the things which I have personally learnt during that journey that started in 2004:-

• That with pedestrian deaths 4 times more in number than cyclists then lower speed limits really are crucial to pedestrians whether they area adults or children. Furthermore the results from 20mph town-wide speed limits in Portsmouth show that motor vehicle passenger casualties reduce by some 37%. This is a road safety initiative that benefits all road users. It is certainly not anti-car, but merely pro-people. 

• That the more drivers themselves who live in a 20mph street then the greater will be their benefits for them and their family and also their compliance with other people’s 20mph limits. 

• I realised that journey times are almost completely determined by how long we are stopped and that maximum speed has a minimal effect. 

• I learnt that Directors of Public Health are some of the strongest supporters of 20mph limits, particularly in the North West where child and adult casualties are higher than the national average. 

• I realised that in Warrington we injure or kill 1,000 people a year on our roads at an estimated cost of £37m per annum. And that in almost every one of those a child was involved. Perhaps not directly being injured or killed, but in the inevitable aftermath of a casualty in the family. For a child losing a relative suddenly, violently and wastefully is a huge emotional burden.  

• I also learnt that minds can change. That officers who maybe had been less convinced were able to take their own path through the evidence and through the Warrington pilots and then come out in support of this important initiative. And those minds are not just here in Warrington but in Portsmouth, Oxford, Lancashire, Islington, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Hartlepool and Bristol where local authorities are implementing 20mph limits on a town-wide basis. I am pleased to have been asked for a meeting with transport minister Norman Baker in 3 weeks time to discuss 20mph implementations around the country 

• And I have also learnt  that here in Warrington, we can replace angst with action. That not only can councillors debate and decide in favour of lower speeds, but also that Warrington citizens can moderate their speed in order to make the roads a better place to be.

And for Warrington Borough Council this journey enters a new phase with the recent executive board decision to roll-out 20mph across the whole town. I note that the debate about which roads to exclude from benefiting is to be conducted at Scrutiny Committee level. This is all democracy in action. The ability to take an almost universal aspiration to make our streets better is being community led and establishment endorsed.

Finally, I would like to thank councillors and officers for their time over the years in getting to where we are today. And I would most of all like to thank you and them on behalf of the people who you will never hear about.

·        The teenager who realises just in time that there is a car coming, but at a speed which avoids a collision

·        The elderly person that now feels safe to walk to the shops.

·        The mother who can now get by without the second family car because her children can feel safe to cycle or walk to school.

·        The middle aged couple who avoided a collision because they had more time to do so.

·        The 5 year child who runs out into the road and the driver who safely stops.

For these will not be the people you see in the statistics or in the news. They may not even realise that your actions today will have saved their lives or their injury. But they will all be beneficiaries of your decision to implement this Traffic Order and the future Traffic Orders on the rest of the Warrington residential roads.

I thank you for listening and encourage you to vote in favour.

---------------------------

I am pleased to report that the committee approved the Traffic Orders and that these will become effective on 15th April 2011.

20's Plenty for Us in 2010

Each year at this time I reflect on our campaign and what we have achieved over the last 12 months.


20’s Plenty for Us has now been operating for 3 complete years. From our start up in Nov 2007 we had objectives across three areas of operation:-

1) Supporting local campaigns for 20 mph as the default speed limit.
2) Influencing the establishment and ensuring 20 mph speed limits are kept on the transport and political agenda.
3) Working with other voluntary organisations and transport professionals to ensure maximum support for 20 mph speed limits.

I am pleased to report that during 2010 we have made tremendous headway in each of these areas. We have established ourselves as a leading influencer in Road Danger Reduction in the UK and this has resulted in over 5m people now living in local authorities with a “Total 20” policy of 20 mph as the default for their residential streets.

We started the year with the announcement of new Speed Limit Guidance from DfT in December 09 that:-

“We want to encourage highway authorities to introduce, over time, 20 mph zones or limits into streets which are primarily residential in nature and into town or city streets where pedestrian and cyclist movements are high, such as around schools, shops, markets, playgrounds and other areas, where these are not part of any major through route.”

This was a major step forward and laid down the foundation for our campaigning in 2010. We immediately followed it by a January discussion day in London held in association with the Urban Design Group looking at how the guidance provided new opportunities for local authorities to implement Total 20 schemes.

And ever since then the year has been hectic, busy and full of fantastic progress and achievements. Besides the thousands of emails with campaigners and others, here are some of the activities and events of the year.

Conferences and meetings we attended and made presentations at :-

• New 20 mph Guidelines Conference.

• Sheffield on the Move meeting

• Presentations to York politicians and public

• Submission to Brighton & Hove Scrutiny Committee

• Submission to DfT on new guidance

• Ecobuild Exhibition Presentation

• Herne Hill Public Meeting

• Bodmin Public and Councillor Meeting

• Meeting with Directors of Public Health

• Presentation to Tees Valley Local Authorities.

• Presentation to Liverpool Scrutiny Committee

• Wilmslow Public Meeting

• Discussions with Transportation Alternatives (New York)

• Published Critical Review of Essex Speed Management Strategy

• Public Meeting in Crewe

• Public Meeting in Chesterfield

• Public Meeting in Cheltenham

• Public Meeting in Sheffield

• Public Meeting in Lambeth

• Presentation to Hartlepool Scrutiny Committee

• Presentation to Transport Planners Society - Manchester

• Public Meeting in Wilmslow

• Presentation/Workshop at CTC/Cyclenation Conference – Portsmouth

• Presentation at 3M Traffic Engineers Conference


In the summer we were also interviewed by StreetFilms who put together a video on our campaign in the UK. This has now received over 6,000 plays and has been included in their “Top 15 Streetfilms of 2010”.

We also were invited to present at the Stop Speeding Summit conference in New York. Walking and Cycling campaigners over there had noticed our progress on 20 mph limits in the UK and arranged for us to present at the event being held by Transportation Alternatives. 6 other events were also arranged during my visit, including a walk around with a senator, meeting the councillor in charge of transport in New York City and also an interview which resulted in a profile in the New Yorker magazine.


During the year we also attracted some modest funding and this enabled us to take on Anna Semlyen as Campaign Manager in August. This has really enabled us to increase our profile and in particular our assistance to local campaigners. Anna is available for 20 hours a week with the responsibility to assist local campaigners, so please make sure that you get help from Anna in your campaigning. Contact Anna at anna.s@20splentyforus.org.uk or call her on 07572120439.

We have also seen a number of Local Authorities now moving to a default 20 mph limit for residential streets. This takes the total population of such Local Authorities to over 5m.

We have also seen a doubling of the number of local campaigns set up to get 20 mph limits in their communities. We now have 60 local campaigns around the country. Many have also taken advantage of our new website template so that they can easily set up their own local 20’s Plenty for Us website to reflect their local campaign. See www.20splentyforchichester.org.uk as an example.

We have also seen 20 mph speed limits increasingly appearing in articles in the media as a viable intervention. In publications such as London Evening Standard, Local Transport Today, and countless regional newspapers, the debate on how we share our roads is focussing on lower speeds as the key way in which our streets can be made better places to be. We have also developed a number of fact and briefing sheets for campaigners.

Other campaigns for active travel, and especially health, have come out in favour of 20 mph limits. We have worked with Sustrans, CTC, RoadPeace and others on the Quality Streets campaign for 20 mph limits. We have also had increasing links and discussions with health professionals about reducing the health cost of crashes and creating an environment more conducive to active travel.
Other recognition for the success of our activities has come from the Sustainable Development Commission and also the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. Both of whom used us a Case Studies for successful campaigning.

And through all of this we have been sustained by the activities, support and inspiration from campaigners like yourselves. We have seen individual campaigns progress from a tentative enquiry about 20 mph speed limits into a whirlwind of activity that results in developing democratic change. Perhaps no better example exists than the efforts of Sarah Sharp in Chichester who contacted us with an enquiry earlier in the year and now has the City Council demanding 20 mph limits from the County Council. Well done Sarah. Other new ideas have come from campaigners including the successful “Wheelie Bin Sticker” campaign in Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire and we now have such A3 stickers available for local campaigns.

So we go into 2011 full of enthusiasm for our cause and confident that we will be able to make progress in what is still only our 4th year of activity. We face some key challenges which we see as :-

The Police – Part of the solution or part of the problem?

Some Police authorities can still be entrenched in the view that 20 mph limits require physical calming and can sometimes be unwilling to take an appropriate role in speed management. This needs challenging. Too often the police have a mental block about 20 mph limit enforcement which leaves them propping up higher speeds in our towns with all the cost and trauma which go with that.

LTP3s – Turning good intentions into implementations.

We need to ensure that commitments within Local Transport Plans do get transformed into actions. With the Cost of Crashes in the UK amounting to nearly £20,000,000,000 per annum (£9,625m for direct casualty costs and a similar amount on unreported vehicle only damage) then there is a huge financial benefit from reducing our speeds and reducing the crashes. We can expect handwringing from Local Authorities saying that 20mph schemes cannot be funded, but this must be challenged by asking how the same authority plans to fund the much greater expenditure on crashes which could be avoided. Our cause has always contained a moral imperative. Clearly it now has a financial imperative as well. Couple that with all the concerns about increasing fuel prices and the viability of being reliant upon motor vehicles for transport then our campaign takes on an even greater significance.

Already for 2011 we are beginning to pack our 20’s Plenty for Us calendar with events and new initiatives. We expect to be busy and feel that this will be a great year for the advancement of Road Danger Reduction in the UK. It is becoming increasing clear that our campaign is winnable, desirable and financially beneficial. Both Anna and myself look forward to working will all our campaigners and activists to make 2011 the year when we can say that 20’s Plenty for Us All in the UK.

Our best wishes and a Happy New Year to you and your families.

Letter from America

Well, not quite. I am now back in UK after a trip to New York to speak at the “Stop Speeding Summit” conference hosted by Transportation Alternatives on 19th November. TA are the “not for profit” organisation based in New York who campaign for walking, cycling and public transport options for New Yorkers.

And it is Transportation Alternatives who I really must thank for their invite, funding my visit and also hospitality whilst I was there. This post is therefore dedicated to TA and their on-going efforts to make New York not only a “great city” but also a “great city to be without being dependent upon a motor vehicle”.

Tuesday 16th Nov

I arrived at Newark Airport in New Jersey at about 5:30pm on Tuesday 16th Nov. Getting through immigration was much easier than I had been warned and soon I was on the monorail from the airport to the Train station when I quickly caught the New Jersey Transit line to Penn Station. This was just a few hundred yards from the TA offices on 26th St. West and my hotel which was next door. I met up with Lindsey Ganson who was my TA contact and their Safety Campaign Director.

After a short meeting I checked in at the hotel and then Lindsey and Kim Martineau (TA’s Communications Manager) took me via the subway down to Lower Eastside where Kim had arranged for me to meet a New Yorker journalist the following morning. This gave me an opportunity to experience the traffic on the streets and get some background to TA’s work in New York. We saw some of the bike lanes which had been installed on some of the major streets with the bike lane next to the sidewalk (pavement), a lane for parked cars and finally 2 or 3 lanes for moving traffic.

I then headed back up to mid-town and after having been up for 21 hrs was ready to get back to my hotel and sleep.

Wednesday 17th Nov – Walk around with New Yorker reporter and presentation at Wagner Rudin Center

Next morning I was up early and after breakfast I went out onto 6th Avenue to take in the atmosphere on the streets. What struck me right way was that with wide roads, most one way, the traffic seemed to be very dense and fast. But then suddenly it would all disappear and for about ½ minute or so hardly a moving vehicle was in sight. It seemed that the traffic was running in pulses through the city. At TA I met Paul Steely White who is their Executive Director. Paul gave me some more background to TA and the way that the New York City Dept of Transportation is taking some innovative steps to assist cycling and walking.

Then Lindsey and I went downtown again to meet with Ian Parker of the New Yorker, who was going to do a walkabout with me. I had been given a speed detector by TA and the idea was to use this to check the passing speed of the cars on roads such as Houston St. Ian was originally from England so it was an interesting discussion. His article can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/tootlingNYC

From there I was presenting at “brown-bag” session at the New York University Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management. The term “brown bag” comes from the notion that students would bring their sandwiches (in a “brown bag”) for a lunchtime session. It gave me a good opportunity to practice my conference presentation to the students studying for their masters degrees in Urban Planning.

Later that evening I had dinner with Paul Steely White and Noah Budnick (Deputy Director) of TA. We discussed the next day’s plans for meeting Jimmy Vacca who is the Council member chairing the city’s transportation committee, and also Senator Eric Adams.

Thursday 18th Nov Meeting with James Vacca and walk around with Senator Adams.

And this is when I got to ride a bike around the city. First it was cycling downtown to the very bottom of Broadway. Noah rode with me and I must admit that with all the one way streets I was not conscious of any problem with cycling “on the right”. In fact many one way streets have the cycle lane on the left. The reasoning is that parked cars that you pass are less likely to have the car driver opening their door on you. But you still have to watch out for passengers.

Jimmy Vacca is a hard-working councilman who took over the chair of the NYC transportation committee early this year. A profile can be seen at :-

http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/05/04/qa-with-city-council-transportation-chair-jimmy-vacca/

I introduced myself as someone who could save NYC millions of dollars in costs of road casualties. I knew I had not more than 15 minutes and wanted to ensure that he remembered me. We talked about the campaign and how it helps everyone, especially the young and old. Then Noah and I cycled across the Brooklyn Bridge and down to the Park Slope area. Noah and I just had time for a coffee on a street corner. To be truthful, the scene outside was similar to one in many UK towns. A line of shops, an evangelical church opposite and surrounded by large terraced housing. We then met up with the Park Slope residents on another street corner and talked about their local campaign for a 20mph speed limit in Park Slope. Senator Adams then arrived and we all walked with him around a few blocks, taking turns to discuss the issues. He was very interested in the UK successes of 20’s Plenty for Us. He even used the phrase “paradigm shift”. Here was someone who understood the issues. It was not just about slowing down, but sharing the roads in a better manner. Clarence Eckerson of StreetFilms made an excellent video which can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/20splentyNYC or on our website home page.

It was really good to see politicians with conviction and vision looking to make their town a better place for their people. Noah and I then cycled back across the Manhattan Bridge, through Chinatown and back to TA. The cycleway across the bridge now has a 20’s Plenty for Us sticker half way across.

Thursday night was spent preparing for the next day’s presentation at the “Stop Speeding Summit” conference. Last minute changes to slides were made including the header slide so that 20’s Plenty for Us morphed into 20’s Plenty for USA.

The presentation was a tricky one. I guess that some of you know that I don’t usually pull punches and here I was a guest in a foreign country charged with asking them to change their driving habits.

Friday 19th Nov – “Stop Speeding Summit” Conference Day

On the morning I walked the couple of miles downtown to the conference. Paul Steely White of TA opened the conference and introduced me as the first presenter.

9:00 – 10:30 Area-wide 20mph zones.

I gave my standard presentation with a few slides taken out to make it a little more compact. To my delight, and relief, the presentation was very well received and the audience had some excellent questions. A report of my presentation can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/20splentyNYCTA

Next, Ian Sacs of the City of Hoboken gave a presentation on how they had started to implement their “20’s Plenty for Hoboken” policy. This asks residents in the New Jersey town of Hoboken to voluntarily keep to 20mph on Hoboken streets.

You can see their campaign at http://tinyurl.com/20splentyhoboken

10:30 – 11:30 Panel Discussion: Slower Speeds = Healthier New Yorkers

Several health professional gave presentations on programs they were leading to promote active travel. All saw the speed of traffic as a major impediment to modal shift.

11:45 – 1:15 Remarks from James Vacca, presentation by Dr. Thomas Farley, and the rap.

I was pleased to see that Council Member James Vacca (whom I had met the day before) gave a speech after lunch and pronounced his favour of a 20mph speed limit and the need to make New Yorks streets more attractive and safer for pedestrians. I particularly liked his statement that “the pedestrian is always in the right, even when the pedestrian is in the wrong”.

Dr. Thomas Farley is the Commissioner for NYC Dept of Health and Mental Hygiene. He presented with a focus on the effects of physical inactivity, especially the fact that 1 in 8 (800,000) adults in NYC are diabetic. The lack of active travel is clearly a problem and health professionals are seeing the consequences of inactive travel as an epidemic. For a New York Times report see http://tinyurl.com/20splentyNYCdiabetes. In the UK health professionals tend to go further than pointing out the problems associated with high speed roads, and predominantly come out in favour of 20mph limits.

I was then asked to give to recite our 20’s Plenty for Us poem which Anna Semlyen (our Campaign Manager) had written for us. I suspect that this was really an opportunity to contrast the “old world” style with the presentation which followed from Dr. John C. Clarke who introduced his “Drive Safe, New York” rap. We have uploaded this excellent sound track to our website at http://tinyurl.com/20splenyNYRap

1:15 – 2:30 Panel Discussion: Automated Speed Enforcement.

The panel discussion on Automated Speed Enforcement was interesting because New York does not have any automatic speed cameras. Various presenters noted how effective they were in other states. Indeed in the UK they are deemed to be effective. However, what is found to work best is a mix of both fixed and randomly placed cameras. The former can reduce speeds on know problem streets, whilst the randomly placed and manned cameras initiate better compliance elsewhere.

For a recent review of the effectiveness of Speed Camera Enforcement in the UK see http://tinyurl.com/20splentycameras

2:30 – 3:15 Panel Discussion: Strategic Use of Crash Data

There was a discussion of data led interventions by Baltimore Police Department and the NYC Dept. of Transportation. It was very much about identifying accident spots and what interventions could be done. Like most data-led interventions it tends to ignore the substantial number of un-clustered collisions which can only be addressed with a wide scale intervention. Of course unclustered minor injuries and “near-misses” also play a fundamental role in conditioning vulnerable road users on the dangers that exist in the streets. Focussing on collision hot spots may well make some reduction in casualties but on their own will not change the perceived danger on the roads.

3:30 – 4:15 The Economic Cost of Crashes

Eric Tang of Cambridge Systematics Inc. gave a presentation on this subject and compared the “cost of congestion” to the “cost of crashes”. He quoted that the cost of crashes is higher than the cost of congestion in every US urban area. In New York the figures are Cost of Crashes - $29Bn, Cost of Congestion - $8Bn.

The closing remarks were made by Paul Steely White of TA. I think that the outcome was that attendees were very pleased with the conference and the recognition it gave to the need to address the speed of motor vehicles in New York City.

In the evening Paul Steely White took me to meet some of the USA Cycling team. I was offered a ride out on the Saturday morning but whilst very interested decided that after several very busy days, I would perhaps not be in good enough shape to keep up. Besides, I had specific instructions from my grandson to get a picture of the Statue of Liberty.

Saturday 20th Nov

My day was spent as a tourist, catching the Staten Island ferry, walking around the town and getting a few souvenirs for the family back home. In the evening, I was delighted to be asked to dinner at the home of one of the TA board of directors and met several of the board and advisory council. In particular, I was able to thank the sponsor who had paid the expenses for me coming to New York.

I was told that our campaign had been watched for several years and that it was noticeable how UK was successfully transforming its towns and cities. It was particularly noted how London has used lower speeds to create a better environment for walkers and cyclists.

Sunday 21st Nov

This was my last day, and so I had arranged to have lunch with Lindsey Ganson. Lindsey had not only been organising the whole conference, but had also ensured that my time was filled with the various interviews. It was also Lindsey who I had first spoken to in the summer when she inquired about our campaign in the UK.

We talked about the success of the conference and how it really was seen as a milestone in initiating the debate on lower speeds and their beneficial effect.

After lunch it was time to head back to the airport and travel back to UK, arriving at 7:30 in Manchester on the Monday morning.

Some reflections

On Transportation Alternatives

TA are great advocates for cycling, walking and public transit. Their mission statement is :-

“to reclaim New York City's streets from the automobile, and to advocate for bicycling, walking and public transit as the best transportation alternatives.”

With a staff of 15 and located in the central area of Manhattan, they are really making a difference changing the way in which transport in viewed in the city. With a receptive Dept. of Transportation they are really making headway in changing attitudes. And from my own experience in the city, walking, cycling and public transport are far faster and cheaper than going by car.

They have a young team of very dedicated staff who are all enthusiastic about making change happen. See some of their campaigns at http://www.transalt.org/campaigns

I therefore thank them for their hospitality and for bringing me across from UK to help in their campaign. The experience has not only gained 20’s Plenty for Us new friends but also enabled us to link with many other advocates of lower speeds in the US. It reminds me that behavioural change in the way roads are shared is actually a universal objective and that whilst our legislation, size of roads, style of driving and even the side of the road we use may differ, the challenges are still the same. And because we all campaign as people rather than cyclists or pedestrians, or English or American, we debate the same values which we attach to the quality of our lives and the freedom to choose our way of moving around our towns and cities.

My thanks go to all the staff, directors and funders of Transportation Alternatives.

On New York drivers!

Before I left, my daughter gave me a book on New York’s history. I leafed through it and found that it was not till page 776 that a motor car was mentioned. Clearly, New York became a great city long before the motor car came about, and I suspect will remain a great city even when the motor car is seen only as a passing phase that was confined to a short period in history.

But the motor car seems to be here for the foreseeable future and in Manhattan it certainly dominates the streets. I reckon that about 75% of cars were actually taxis, and all of them seeking to get as many rides in as short a time as possible. Taxis seem to accelerate up to 35-40mph and above as quickly as possible once the lights change. To them time is money and going fast is seen as the “New York way”. But on the other hand, I heard that within the central business area of Manhattan then the average speed of cabs from 8am till 8pm is never more than 10mph. So for all their pace and speed they must be stopped for the majority of the time.

To me, if you want to reduce speeds in New York then you have to “Tame the Taxi”. Do that and other traffic is bound to be slowed down as well. On the face of it this would seem difficult, yet taxis are highly regulated. Currently taxi fares are relatively cheap. Fitting tracking devices to measure their speed is neither difficult or expensive and fares could be increased slightly to offset any slight increase in journey times. At the same time, slower maximum speeds increase the capacity of roads and also decrease the fuel used and emissions produced.

“Taming the Taxi” would therefore be my approach to reducing prevailing speeds on NYC roads. That, together with lower and enforced speed limits could transform New York and make it an even better place to be. It would also really encourage cycling and walking.

On New York and 20’s Plenty for Us

Well 20’s Plenty for Us has had great success in the UK. We are changing the way our streets are shared and making a real difference in so many towns throughout the country. From what I have seen in New York then its possible there as well. Already the Dept. of Transportation is planning to introduce 20mph limits to a pilot area in the Bronx. We know from our own experience that pilots simply increase the aspiration and demand for the same treatment in other communities. And we know of no communities that once given a 20mph speed limit want it to revert back to a higher one.

The key factors in change are strong advocacy, sympathetic professionals and visionary politicians. Whilst I was in New York I saw all of these. I suspect it’s not a case of whether 20’s Plenty for New York but simply when 20 will be Plenty for New York.

And of course if they can do it there then they can do it anywhere!

My best regards to everyone I met in New York. and special thanks to Transportation Alternatives.

Walk around Brooklyn with Senator Eric Adams

20's plenty for Us were presenting at the "Stop Speeding Summit" in new York last week. The groundbreaking conference hosted by Transportation Alternatives brought together Transport, Road Safety, Health and Enforcement professionals and Rod King started the conference with a review of the success of the 20's Plenty for Us campaign in the UK.
Other meetings were arranged with New York politicians, activists and officials. In the following video you can see Senator Eric Adams in a walk around the Park Slope area of Brooklyn talking to Rod King and other local activists :-


A Walk thru Park Slope with NY State Senator Eric Adams from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Presentation to Transport Planners Society

Last week I was asked to present in a debate on 20mph speed limits in Manchester. Here is a copy of what I said :-

For many years Britain has led the world in terms of lowest deaths per head of population on our roads. But that has led us into a state of complacency. It is true that we have been gradually engineering our roads to be safer. But for whom. Whilst in the Netherlands 10% of road deaths are pedestrians, in the UK it is 22.5% .


Our levels of active travel in the UK are some of the worst in Europe. And in a recent survey by Road Safety Analysis of UK child road casualties it found that for the worst 10 local authorities, 1 in 15 children would be injured or killed on our roads before the age of 16. And 9 of those 10 local authorities were in the North West.

So we may have gradually engineered away many of our black spots, and have better trauma care, and better in-car safety, but for our vulnerable road users we are, collectively failing to meet their needs for free and safe passage on our roads.

We use the term “Total 20” for the setting of 20mph as the default for all residential roads in a local authority. This allows the local traffic engineers to determine the exception as appropriate for local conditions. It does so without putting in additional speed bumps and only “light touch” enforcement. “Total 20” stands on its own merits in terms of cost effectively reducing speeds and casualties.

In Portsmouth we know that on faster roads, where casualties are most common and severe, there has been a 6mph reduction in speeds and a 22% overall town-wide reduction in casualties.

In Warrington the recent 20mph pilots resulted in a 800% First Year Rate of Return when the costs and achieved casualty reductions were analysed.

• We know that 30mph streets will never provide the basis for encouraging active travel.

• We know that children are far more at casualty risk around their homes than around their schools.

• We know that a 30mph limit set in 1934 as better than nothing is now inappropriate for so many of our streets.

• We know that a large percentage of all casualties are unclustered and cannot be addressed by data led interventions.

• We know that whilst speed may only be the cause of some collisions it is implicated in the inability to take avoiding action in the majority of incidents.

• And we know that in European cities the 30kph limit is the foundation of their cycling and walking strategies.

We need a fundamental change,…. A paradigm shift in the way we approach danger on the roads.

Total 20 provides the catalyst for that change. Its starts with the community aspiration for lower speeds where people live. And that aspiration means that compliance is not some driver reaction to a speed limit sign but a conscious lifestyle decision that we should all take steps to make our streets better places for us all. 20 becomes plenty when we see the presence of people for Speed becomes Greed when it dissuades others from walking or cycling due to fear of traffic.

It asks us to recognise that our journey times are hardly affected by our maximum speed but largely determined by the time we are stopped or in congestion.

And it is because that authority-wide decision requires the democratic and political processes for it to be implemented that it forces the community debate and creates that paradigm shift. And this is where the approach radically differs from most “Data led” road safety interventions.

You see there is no constraint in “Total 20” that anyone can rely upon. No guarantees to give councillors. It is “social engineering” rather than “highway engineering”.

It requires a move away from the drawing board and the statistical analysis of past collisions and asks how can we best act as a catalyst for behaviour change. How can we take that universal aspiration for a better place to live and transform that into our society examining its actions and making that “lifestyle decision” to slow down?

How can we transform the aspiration of children to cycle or walk to school and transfer that into their parents recognising that their driving may be part of the problem?

And we need to have faith in the people. And most of all we need to engage with those people. And that is the key to the success of Total 20. The more you do to reach out and engage and debate and discuss and inform and consult and listen, then the greater will be the success.

You see “Total 20” is an initiative that is community led but establishment endorsed. It needs that community leadership. And we know that 75% of those asked, including 72% of drivers believe that 20mph is the right speed limit for residential roads.

There are some key aspects to the “Total 20” approach :-

1) It delivers the benefit of lower speeds on most driver’s home streets. Hence giving them ownership of that benefit.

2) It is consistent with the message that wherever you mix motor vehicles with people then the people must come first.

3) It takes away the current isolated 20mph patches which merely re-inforce higher speeds on the rest of the network.

I have been campaigning for lower speeds on our urban and residential roads since I travelled to Warrington’s twin town in 2004 and observed that their 23% of in town trips being made by bicycle. This was not built on cycle facilities or off road routes, but on a 30kph (18.5 mph) speed limit for residential roads across the whole town in the early 90s.

Since then I have noticed is a huge shift towards the acceptance of lower speeds as a requirement for improving not only road safety, but the quality of life in our communities. So many organisations from Association of Directors of Public Health, to the National Audit Office and now the Dept for Transport say that 20mph limits are needed for residential roads. 20’s plenty for Us now has 60 local campaigns around the country and our feedback from those communities is that more and more politicians and council officers and police are looking to “Total 20” as a modern, cost effective initiative as a response to community aspirations.

But it is simply not enough to just “ask” people to slow down. It needs the establishment endorsement that comes with a mandatory speed limit being set.

We need to leave behind our “baggage” of what didn’t work in the 1980s and realise that our communities have changed.

We need to think way outside the traditional road safety box. We need to recognise that active travel and its consequent health benefits, better road utilisation, a less car dependent culture, lower noise and lower pollution are all valuable deliveries alongside lower casualties.

These cannot and will not be achieved by mere tinkering with a few isolated speed reduction techniques. The obsession with physical constraints creates that isolation. It creates the view that we can drive at 30 mph on most residential roads but only need to slow down occasionally. Indeed it even promotes faster speeds by large 30mph signs at the end of every isolated 20mph zone.

20mph zones with physical calming are 50 times more expensive per km than Total 20 schemes with their authority-wide economies of scale and communities with a collective commitment to safer roads. Or to put it another way “Total 20” allows 50 times the coverage than isolated zones for the same cost.

And I know that some will talk of the need to “manage community expectations”. Otherwise everyone will want lower speeds on their streets. I say harness those expectations, ride the tiger and use it to deliver a better and fairer sharing of the roads.

I know that some of you will be sceptics. Some will say people won’t change. But in towns across the country communities are asking for that change and politicians and officers are delivering it. Portsmouth is proving that slower roads stay slow and faster roads get slower.

The time has come to give all our citizens a “quality street”. Its time to humanise the space between houses which we call streets and give it back to the people who live in those houses.

20 is already Plenty for the citizens of Portsmouth, and Oxford, and Islington, and Newcastle, and Wirral, and Leicester, and Hilden, and Copenhagen, and Brussels, and Amsterdam, and Rotterdam and Ghent and Graz, and so many more. I trust that you also think that its time that we started to make 20 Plenty for our Northwest towns and villages as well.

At 20’s Plenty for Us we would be pleased to help you. Please contact us.

Thank You

Statement to Warrington Bourough Council

Warrington Borough Council recently asked me for a statement to go into their report on their recent 20mph pilots. It was as follows :-

Driving slower where people live is nothing new or radical. In fact it is already common in towns and communities all over Europe. Indeed, it was a trip to our twin town, Hilden, in 2004 which made me realise that so many of our attitudes to sharing the streets were unfair to the young, the old, the disabled, the disadvantaged and every one of us who wants their streets to be as much a place to live as to drive. From this came the formation of 20’s Plenty for Us as the national voluntary organisation supporting communities who want better streets through lower motor vehicle speeds.


In Hilden and other European towns the vast majority of in-town trips are made by walking, cycling or by bus. In Hilden an 18mph speed limit on residential roads was put in during the 90’s and became a foundation for active travel. Their children largely cycle or walk to school and drivers accept that a few seconds longer on a journey is no real inconvenience.

The only thing stopping us doing this in Warrington and other UK towns is our resistance to change. Whilst we disagree with the need for the pilots (there is ample evidence that 20mph limits do work), the recent 20mph pilots have shown not only that Warrington drivers will elect to travel slower, but also that residents will feel that their streets have become better places to live. The evidence from other towns which have adopted 20mph across the whole town is that this delivers even greater results. On slower roads it keeps the speeds low and on faster roads reduces it by 6mph or more.

That reduction makes a huge difference in reducing the danger on our roads. And Warrington really is in need of such a change. Every 12 hours in 2009 someone was injured on Warrington roads, every 4 days someone was seriously injured and every 60 days someone died. In Warrington 1 in 26 children will be killed or injured on the roads before their 16th birthday. For child road casualties we are in the worst 25% of towns in the country. This is not simply about reducing pedestrian and cycle casualties, but also motor vehicle occupants as well.

We all know that council budgets are tight, but the cost of road casualties in Warrington is put at £50m per annum. That’s £253 for every man, woman and child and 50% more than most towns of our size. The cost of implementing a 20mph limit throughout the town on all residential roads and excluding arterial roads is just £1m. Whilst it will not instantly reduce our casualties to zero it can become the foundation for making all of Warrington a better and safer place to be.

It will show that we can make the right judgements about what matters to a civilised and compassionate community. It is time for all of us to take a hard look at our collective sharing of roads and simply say that 20’s Plenty Where People Live. And that time is now.

20's Plenty for Us video by Streetfilms

We were delighted to take part in a video made by Streetfilms of New York.




For more information and to view the video then go to the Streetfilms website page by clicking here.

Many thanks to Elizabeth Press at Streetfilms for her time and efforts.